Diabetes: Assessing Your Risk

Your body changes most of the food you eat into glucose (a form of sugar). Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that allows glucose to enter all the cells of your body and be used as energy.

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when a person’s body doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use insulin properly. When you have diabetes, the sugar builds up in your blood instead of moving into the cells. Too much sugar in the blood can lead to serious health problems, including heart disease and damage to the nerves and kidneys.

There are 2 types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body doesn’t produce any insulin. In type 2 diabetes, the body either doesn’t produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. Nearly 95% of people who are diagnosed with diabetes have type 2 diabetes.

Talk to your doctor about your risk factors for diabetes. Although you may not be able to change all of them, you can make changes to significantly lower your risk.

Obesity is the single most important risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The more overweight you are, the more resistant your body is to insulin. To figure out if you're overweight, check the chart at the end of this handout and talk to your doctor. A healthy, low-fat diet and regular exercise can help you lose weight gradually and keep it off.

The risk for type 2 diabetes increases with age, especially after age 45. Although you can't change your age, you can work on other risk factors to reduce your risk.

Although you can't change your family history, it is important for you and your doctor to know if diabetes runs in your family. Your risk for diabetes is higher if your mother, father or sibling has diabetes. Tell your doctor if anyone in your family has diabetes.

For reason still unclear to doctors, some ethnic groups have a higher risk of diabetes than others. You are at greater risk if you belong to one of these groups:

Exercising and maintaining a healthy weight can reduce your risk of diabetes. Any amount of activity is better than none, but try to exercise for 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week. If you haven't exercised in a while or you have health problems, talk with your doctor before starting an exercise program.

A diet high in fat, calories and cholesterol increases your risk of diabetes. In addition, a poor diet can lead to obesity (another risk factor for diabetes) and other health problems. A healthy diet is high in fiber and low in fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar. Also, remember to watch your portion size--how much you eat is just as important as what you eat.

Gestational diabetes is a kind of diabetes that happens only during pregnancy. It occurs in about 4% of pregnant women. Although gestational diabetes goes away after pregnancy, 40% to 60% of women who had gestational diabetes are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within 15 years.

Even if they don't have gestational diabetes, women who give birth to babies weighing 9 pounds or more are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a condition that occurs when an imbalance of hormone levels in a women's body causes cysts to form on the ovaries. Women who have PCOS are at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases with the number of risk factors you have. If you have 2 or more risk factors, talk to your doctor about how to delay or prevent type 2 diabetes.